01/01/2024
Happy New Year 2024🥳🥳🥳
Sandy’s daughter Valerie just went through the most difficult time in her life, in 2023.
She was diagnosed with Stage 4 cervical cancer that had penetrated her her bladder and colon.
After finding Envita Cancer Medical Center in Scottsdale and 12 weeks of daily treatments and targeted chemo therapy, Valerie is cancer free in all her organs and body!!!🥳🥳🥳 Praise God for His healing, Spiritually, physically and emotionally.
Valerie said it was OK to share a note she sent to her dad, who is not a Believer about her reflection of her experience.
“A response to my dad after he advised me on how to move through my emotions. It’s my fault. If I leave God out of the conversations then the other person has no context for my spiritual practice. Spoken in secular terms. 😆 but I wanted to share with you what i wrote to him. Not so you should know what I said but because the Glory of God in it is so good!
Yes emotional intelligence. Learning to recognize my emotions. Name them. Oh I’m feeling fill in the blank. This recognition of emotions lets me know where I am on the map. Once recognized and validated i can sit with or move through the emotions feel them and release them. Actively participating in the healing of myself. I think accept them is a better understanding. I feel blank. Why do I feel this way?
Feelings aren’t facts. Feelings can be cruel masters. And I am free.
I have a life verse. It always ministers to me in every situation. 18 years it’s been working on me.
”It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.“
Galatians 5:1
This has taught me not to rely on my feelings. I am not a slave to them. I am free. Then pairing that verse with this one hits a grand slam for me. Outta the park with this:
”Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.“
Romans 12:2
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind? Studying the way the brain works, neuroscience, I find by listening to scholars that we have pathways in our brain. When i think a certain thought over and over again it develops a pathway in the brain. So then every time I have a certain experience or a trigger brain sends me down the same path as always. Same emotions same reactions. (coming from the amygdala the fight or flight part of the brain sending input to the frontal lobes) So how do i fix that? How do i renew my mind and stay free?
”We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.“
2 Corinthians 10:5
I had to meditate a lot on that one. First of all the word obedience is highly offensive to my character.😆
But I learned that it means to agree here. Yes I can agree with God. And then accepting that obedience comes from a place of love. Which came later. Acting out of obedience in a way that I am not a slave but given freely because it causes me to love better. Love myself and others. Because for me God is good and I am learning goodness. But I didn’t always believe God was good. That took some more life experience but not abandoning that relationship in the process. That created trust and understanding. This next one is a horrible verse. Hard for me to accept.
”Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.“
Romans 5:3-4
But have seen the truth in it now more than ever. It was perseverance, character and hope that got me through cancer treatment. Only by me going through life with these teachings and my very close relationship with God could I let myself be open to receive that chemo. Holy Spirit talks to me and I hear him. But I only hear his voice because I have been listening and renewing and suffering, taking thoughts captive and subjecting them to what does God say? for every circumstance for a long time now. Now this last test has shown me there is not much I can walk through without being able to find peace truth and joy. To be content in any situation is a super power and I’ve wanted that for a long time. And then to be able to have joy too in any situation. How is that possible? By the renewing of your mind. And there is so much more. But it’s hard to talk about faith in Jesus with anyone one because it is highly offensive usually. I am not preaching. I am just revealing what has worked for me. And yes it came from an unlikely place for me because I was anti religion. Ha! But what I have is not religion. It’s not rules. It’s life giving to me. And I am so grateful!”
We pray that Valerie’s words would touch someone’s heart reading this on New Years Day. Amen
Big Jesus hugs🙏🙏🙏❤️
